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Playing it cool; Landing a job requires confidence, even during tough times

By Dimitri Kalantzis, Source: Tribune Media Services

When 50-year-old Megan McCready lost her sales job earlier this year, she did what most recently laid-off workers do: she dived headfirst into her job search.

“Like most people,” says McCready, just one of the 15.1 million workers who have lost their job since the recession began in December 2007, “I started with a blaze of glory.”

For McCready, a single mother of a 15-year-old son this meant sending out “hundreds of resumes” and making “a ton of phone calls.”

But months passed with little promise, offering only four or five interviews. And what was once an energetic pursuit collapsed into an enervating reality.

“If all you do all day is read rejection letters and not getting phone calls back,” recalls McCready, who spent more than 25 years in marketing and consumer promotions, “it’s debilitating.”

Career experts agree that McCready is not alone.

“It’s gonna be burnout just like you have at work sometimes because the whole process of looking for a job is your job right now,” says Meg Montford, a career coach in Kansas City, Mo.

Montford, like many other career coaches, said it is vital for job seekers to create a schedule and remain faithful to a routine, one not unlike what they had when they were employed.

Deb Morton, a career coach in Buffalo Grove, Ill., advises her clients to supplement their job search with career training and volunteer work.

Focusing only on landing the next job, Morton says, will ultimately weaken a job seeker’s morale and the results will come through at the worse moments.

“A lot of job seekers are hard on themselves,” Morton says, “and it’s really hard to turn that around for an interview.”

McCready, who lives in Houston, found herself reeking of desperation during her interviews. Her confidence beleaguered, she adopted an, “Oh please God, please hire me” attitude.

It didn’t work.

Looking to keep her skill set sharp, McCready began volunteering at her church, helping the administration focus their communication and marketing efforts. Several months later she was hired as the church’s full-time director of communications, taking a 50 percent pay cut from her previous job.

In that time, McCready was forced to lease her townhouse and move to a part of Houston she isn’t “too crazy about.” Her son began worrying about whether they would make it.

And so far they have.

“It made for a very difficult year,” McCready says today, “but I’m happier now.”

Successful interviews

Prepare, prepare, prepare. Career coaches Montford and Morton put this job seeker’s credo at the top of the list. Preparation, they say, involves studying a company’s mission and history and applying your strengths to the company’s needs and goals.

“It’s more about them than you, says Montford.

Additionally, Morton advises her clients to join a job seeker support or networking group and to practice interviewing out loud and not “just in your head.”

Create a detailed schedule, which includes not only your job search but your free time, as well. Not only is it okay to have fun during your unemployment, it’s absolutely necessary if you want to exude confidence during an interview. Volunteer at your church or child’s school or find an unpaid internship.

“It’s amazing where some of the job leads come from,” Montford says.

© 2009, Tribune Media Services